One Dead And Five Injured In Romania Refinery Blast

Bucharest, July 2 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Jul, 2021 ) :A worker at Romania's largest oil refinery has been killed and five others injured in an explosion there Friday, emergency services told AFP.

The explosion happened at the Petromidia refinery on the Black Sea coast which belongs to the Kazakh KazMunayGas (KMG) group.

It is not yet known what caused the blast.

The injured, one of whom was seriously hurt, were taken to hospital in the city of Constanta.

"An incident occurred on the platform of the Petromidia refinery... whose operations have been stopped as a security measure," the KMG group said in a statement.

A thick column of black smoke could be seen rising from the site after the incident, which is only around 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Mamaia, the country's main coastal resort.

Around 50 firefighters have been dispatched to help tackle the blaze.

Meteorologists say the smoke is mostly being blown out to sea, but authorities have nevertheless urged local residents to keep their windows closed.

The refinery is Romania's largest and was the subject of a dispute between KMG and the Romanian government at the beginning of the 2000s.

In 2016, prosecutors seized the refinery as part of a probe into tax evasion, money laundering and fraud opened in 2006.

The investigation was dropped in 2019.